IF THE U.S. WANTS TO LEAD THE WORLD, WE FIRST NEED TO ELECT A VISIONARY TO LEAD OUR OWN COUNTRY.
Our current global system is in need of a major revision. The focus needs to be on building sustainable economic environments all around the world rather than relying on growth at all cost driven by shortterm greed. The global playing field is not only changing around us, it is changing at an accelerating rate.
When Washington only reacts to the problems the media hypes today, it fails to secure our long-term future. I’m dumbfounded that none of the presidential hopefuls are even asking the right questions or giving us a roadmap of how we build a better America for the next generation. Building a 1,900- mile wall, deporting 11 million Hispanics (reminiscent of Hitler), carpet-bombing entire regions of the Middle East or raising the minimum wage and taxing the rich are not real solutions to the long-term challenges we face.
The fundamental problems we face have little to do with standing up to Russia, holding China accountable, or defeating ISIS; little to do with reforming Washington, Wall Street or Healthcare.
A trilogy of technology, capital and communications are bringing about seismic disruptions at a rate the world has never experienced before.
It should therefore come as no great surprise that oil prices have fallen or that China’s economy has slowed down, to list two examples. As a result, oligarchies and kingdoms can no longer rely on exporting oil and gas as their main way to pay for things. Nations will no longer be able to bank on exporting cheap labor as their primary way to pay for their own progress.
Let’s take immigration as an example: The vast majority of ordinary people will not voluntarily leave their home countries if they feel safe and have an adequate way to sustain themselves and their families. So if they immigrate, it is because the environmental or political situation is forcing them to do so.
Let’s take ISIS as an example, and let’s look at it not as a movement based on ideology, but view it as a business model because it is the only way they know how to make a living in an unstable region. (It is a paid army).
So imagine if the United States would lead by example, building an economic system right here at home centered on longterm sustainability benefi ting all Americans. Imagine for a moment that instead of exporting weapons and video games and movies that celebrate aggression, we exported knowledge, technology and systems that allow nations to build their own sustainable economy. Imagine for a moment that instead of destroying, threatening or occupying foreign countries, we offered real and effective help in building a more verdant and peaceful world.
Is that too much to ask for? It seems that way looking at the list of “issues” current presidential candidates offer to solve.
Maybe an independent candidate such as Michael Bloomberg can re-shape the debate and start asking the right questions and offer solutions that go beyond the current Washington talk we get from the two parties. Maybe mainstream Americans are longing for an America that leads the free world by example and not by aggression.
It would require a quantum leap in our thinking in order to turn change into progress. We have done it before and it is time to do it again!
U.S. defense budget: $600 BILLION + (39% of global expenditure)
U.S. arms export: $10 BILLION (40% of global exports)
U.S. foreign aid to non-military causes: $32 BILLION (less than 1% of total U.S. government expenditure)
SOUND OFF
Please send your comments to mfrey@freymedia.com. I would like to get your feedback on this idea.
